User talk:Mattinbgn/Sandbox - Notability Australian football leagues and clubs

Regional leagues

Are the regional football leagues really semi-professional? I believe the regional leagues deserve articles, but I don't think they are semi-professional. I'd aim to try to merge the team articles to either the town they represent or the league. --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It is a debatable point. While some players, even most in leagues such as the Ovens and Murray Football League and Goulburn Valley Football League are paid, meaning that they cannot be classed as amateur, they are certainly not professional in the sense that football is their profession. Although I have created a bundle of regional club articles, see Berrigan Football Club, I would have no objection to merging them into a league or town article where appropriate. It would possibly improve the league articles and get them to at least a Start or B class rather than the overblown stub (large size, limited content) that they are at now. I will reword to that effect--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 02:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

OK - I'm uncertain about the club articles. There is nothing in Berrigan Football Club that I think does not belong in Wikipedia, and if the same level of detail were provided for each of the other five sports listed in Berrigan, New South Wales it would be ready to split into a new Sport in Berrigan article, which is just ridiculous. Merging most of the info from the clubs into the league article might work, as much of it can be presented in lists or tables in a more compact manner. The league article presently has the list of clubs in 1) the infobox, 2) the text and 3) a navbox template at the bottom. This could be adapted to a table of critical info and a section for the detail of each club. I suggest changing the title "Semi professional leagues and clubs" to "Semi professional and regional leagues and clubs". --Scott Davis ^Talk 01:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

What is missing is references to reliable sources independent of the league / team. If footypedia accepts user contributions it is a social networking site so it does not meet WP:RS. If you remove all the unsourced content nothing is left. Then there is an empty article and there is no problem.

Most press coverage is not related to the team, it is related to the league - who are the premiers? Runners-up? Minor premiers? So it belongs on the article related to the league.Garrie 05:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Scott - if I had to merge BFC into Berrigan, it would say

The Berrigan Saints Football club compete in the Picola & District Football League. Prior to 2003, they competed in the Murray Football League where they enjoyed occaisional success as premiers.

I think I could cover AFL, soccer, netball and baseball all in a Sports section of the Berrigan article. The article is significantly reduced if you don't need to mention every team in the league, leave out the colours, and don't have to say what town the team plays for (because it's self-evident).

Garrie 05:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Some thoughts

I think that the clubs and players should be addressed seperately. The criteria should also address the historical era's as people are notable solely for playing yet they werent professional players. I also think the criteria should be clearly segmented, narrow in definition so that each can be specifically referred to, with examples clearly stated. Gnangarra 05:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a problem there. I have never seen an AfD where an article has clear multiple independent sources where the article is deleted. If John Smith, AFL Footballer has been written about - as the primary subject of multiple publications - then he is sufficiently notable for an article. This is well covered at WP:BIO. What isn't well covered, is when his team becomes notable based on broad press coverage related to the league that mentions the team name (and the players) in passing. Saying North Wagga Wagga Saints won the Riverina AFL Premiership is really about the premiership, not the team. Any well sourced article will survive AfD. Anything that's not sourced doesn't meet WP:ATT. That is what needs to be reinforced.Garrie 05:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Some more thoughts

In particular, could this mention umpires, coaches, and other involved people (club presidents or the AFL CEO for instance). Other football-related things to consider are past (pre-internet) players (who may not have much to cite on Google, but there's a lot of offline content about past players), pages about individual football seasons, and pages about football venues. If it's a notability draft for Aussie-rules topics, then it should probably cover as much as possible. Cheers. --Michael Billington (talk) 11:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Michael, just because it's offline doesn't mean it cannot be cited. The problem usually is people only want to do cut-and-paste citation. A dictionary/directory/club history of regional footballers will never assert individual notability for any of them, but it will help fill in details if one of these footballers / umpires/ officials actually becomes the primary subject of independent material.Garrie 05:34, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Michael, good point and I will reword to that effect. Gnangarra raised a good point about pre-AFL players not being fully professional but still notable,e.g Barrie Robran and I will incorporate that as well.--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 07:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Fully professional leagues and clubs

This section specifically refers to the AFL. I think it should include something along the lines of "and it's predessessors or subsequent professional leagues". Is the VFL the only fully pro league pre- the AFL? I assume there are no lesser-graded fully professional competitions? (is the second-string comp fully professional?) Garrie 05:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

While Victorians will disagree, prior to the AFL, the VFL, WAFL and SANFL were all at around a reasonable level of parity. Then, as now, there would be few if any fully professional players in any of these leagues although would be paid at least something. WikiProject AFL may disagree but I would not concede that any player playing in these leagues, pre or post the AFL is automatically notable--Mattinbgn/ ^talk 07:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Progress

I note articles such as this are still being created. How did we go with establishing a guideline?Garrie 06:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I must admit I rather lost interest for a while, and over the last month I have looked over it guiltily. I have thought it may be better written as an essay rather than a guideline. I don't think this would require a great rewrite, in fact it could probably be reduced in size and as an essay it wouldn't need the same level of community consensus. Of course, it would not be binding but at least it would be a succinct rationale behind creation and deletion of Australian rules football articles. -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 08:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Funny that

How fans are the people creating the articles and information for wikipedia and the so called "experts" are the ones who have nothing better to do than to establish notability guides so that they can delete them. No wonder noone bothers contributing anymore. --Rulesfan 09:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• I am sure I have no idea what you are talking about or what response you are looking for. If you are commenting about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nagambie Football Club, I !voted to keep. If you have something you would like to contribute to this piece please, please do. -- Mattinbgn/ ^talk 10:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)